The dancing girl.

The monkey covering its eyes.

The phallic-looking aubergine.

Admit it, everyone has a favourite emoji.

via GIPHY

Our current favourites? New ones depicting breasfeading, a woman wearing a hijab, a man and woman in the lotus position and gender inclusive adults and children.

Unicode, the computing industry standard for encoding, has just signed off on 56 new emoji symbols to be added to our keyboards, including an elf, a mermaid, a coconut, tinned food, a face vomitting and a man with a beard.

Breastfeeding emoji | ELLE UKpinterest
Unicode

Scheduled for release in 2017 on Apple and Android devices, the emojis are slowly starting to represent all members of society in terms of gender, race and religion and is making Twitter users around the world incredibly happy.

xView full post on X

The 'woman wearing a hijab' emoji came as a result of 15-year-old student Riyadh-born Rayouf Alhumedhi, who proposed the new emoji sign with the explanation that, 'roughly 550 million Muslim women on this earth pride themselves on wearing the hijab.

With this enormous number of people, not a single space on the keyboard is reserved for them.
Bearded emoji | ELLE UKpinterest
Unicode

Alhumedhi told Arab News that she hopes the new emoji will rid society of the stigma associated with wearing the hijab and reveals that her friends who also wear hijabs are looking forward to using the icon.

'They're really excited that this emoji will come to life because of me, their friend. I told my friends that, when it is on a keyboard, it will be the only emoji that we'll be using,' she added.

The list will be finalised when Unicode 10.0 is released in mid-2017. Read Alhumedhi's proposal below on Scribd.

Headshot of Katie O'Malley
Katie O'Malley
Site Director

Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.